In recent years, the game of golf has attracted millions of golfers throughout the United States and is gaining popularity in many foreign countries. The vast majority of these golfers are leisure-time golfers who play the game with insufficient frequency to rapidly improve their scores. However, even the leisure-time golfers consider the game a highly competitive sport and are always looking for ways to easily lower their scores. Improvement generally requires many hours of practice, and few golfers have access to good practice facilities. Even if facilities for practicing the game are available, practice by simply driving the ball into a net, driving a ball into a driving range without having a specific target or without knowing exact distances, or practice without any information concerning the timing of the golfer's swing or his possible "hook" or "slice" may do little to improve the golfer's game. Practice on a golf course itself is practically an impossibility because of the crowded conditions of most courses and because of the limited amount of time the average leisure-time golfer has to devote to improving his golf game.
When the foregoing difficulties are coupled with the relatively short outdoor playing season that exists throughout most of the United States, there is a need for any means that will make it convenient for the golfer to improve his game either through practice or by extending the available hours for play. Many attempts have been made to provide means and facilities for allowing a golfer to practice and "play" indoors. What may be the best of these attempts have resulted in apparatus and devices which have not developed commercially because thay are too costly for the average golfer and are too difficult to maintain. The less costly prior art devices and apparatus which have been tried have done little to improve a golfer's game and in some instances have even encouraged bad playing habits. Other prior art devices and apparatus have failed commercially because they have not been able to simulate sufficient realism or have not provided a means for determining reasonably accurate estimates of range and lie of each golf shot.
There is, therefore, a definite need for any device or apparatus which can be used primarily indoors and which can provide a golfer with enjoyable recreation while at the same time providing definite and measurable improvement of all of the various strokes employed in the game of golf. Any such device must of course provide sufficient realism of play in order to maintain the golfer's interest and must also be of a design that can be marketed at a price attractive to the average leisure-time golfer.